


Azula Alphabet

by historymiss



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Character Alphabet, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-14
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-03 15:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 6,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty-six drabbles exploring the Fire Nation princess we all love to hate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A is for Azulon

By the time his second child is born, Ozai has fallen even further out of favour with his father.

It is a matter of simple statistics. Iroh is the older child. He is, currently, the Dragon of the West, storming across the Earth Kingdom like the wrath of the spirits themselves. Ozai, while an accomplished Firebender, is forced to stay at home. Weighed against his elder brother's military achievements, his own do not seem so mighty. 

He finds it hard to feel anything when presented with his new daughter. A pang of regret, perhaps, for as a second child himself he knows that she will have to struggle for recognition, and fight to take what should be hers.

"We need a name for the official announcement, my lord." the attendant asks (nervously, for Ozai has a reputation even then). 

Ozai considers the girl, asleep in her golden cot. Ursa, exhausted, has one hand on the rim but the other on Zuko's head, ruffling the boy's black hair. 

"I will name her after my father." That should please the old fool enough to give him some standing, at least. "Azula."


	2. B is for Ba Sing Se

Azula loves Ba Sing Se. As much as she loves anything, anyway. She loves the regimented shape of it, the broad, artificial planes of the imperial palace, the hot, dusty smell of its streets. 

Most of all, she loves that it is hers. 

Oh, on paper it belongs to Joo Dee, and ultimately, of course, it belongs to Father just like every other Fire Nation territory, but this city was captured by Azula's cunning and Azula's strategy, and nobody can take that away from her. When the history of Ba Sing Se is written, it is Azula who will be the one that conquered the mighty capital of the Earth Kingdom. She never thought she could love somewhere more than she loved the Fire Nation, but something about the Imperial palace: those large, empty spaces, the giant throne that dwarfs its occupant so that you must make your presence known through sheer force of will- attracts her.

Azula stands at the window of the palace and drags one pointed fingernail over the smooth marble of the sill. A breeze stirs her hair. 

"Ty Lee." 

Beside her the younger girl looks up from her handstand. 

"Yup?"

"When I am Firelord, I think I will make my capital here."

Implicit: You will make your home here with me.

"Okey dokey." Ty Lee shifts from one hand to the other, accepting, unquestioning. "They've got a better zoo, anyway."


	3. C is for Cracks

There are thirty-two pieces of mirror.

Azula traces the crack with her finger, holds the shard up to see the blood. It's darker than she imagined, not bright like Father's robes or the royal drapes, a sombre colour leeched of life.

She watches the blood slide across the glass, then remembers that it should hurt, and drops it. Watches it fall. 

On the floor, the scattered shards catch the light and dazzle like flames. Azula leans over them to count again.

Thirty-two Azulas stare back at her. Sixty-four eyes: her mother's eyes, accusing, soft, wretched.

"You look terrible." she tells them matter-of faculty. "And on the day of your coronation."

On the twentieth shard, the blood has formed a scar over one eye.

It's okay. Her shoulders shake. You can laugh. It's funny.

Azula feels a dizzying sensation, like vertigo, and laughs and laughs and laughs.


	4. D is for Dare

"Mai, Ty Lee, if I dared you to eat a bug, would you do it?"

They are lying on the grass of the private gardens, listening to the water ripple on the pond. The air shimmers with the heat of summer.

"Why would you ask me to eat a bug?" Mai's nose wrinkles. "Bugs are disgusting."

Disgusting is a new word Mai has picked up, and she likes it. It describes many things perfectly: the food at her mother's parties, the girls she is forced to socialise with at the Academy, the sticky summer heat.

Azula files Mai's response away for later, and turns her head, the dead grass tickling her cheek.

"Ty Lee?"

"I think I'd do it." 

"You would?" Azula's shriek of delight mingled with horror sends a flock of pigeondoves scattering from the garden's lone tree. "Why?"

"Because you wouldn't ask without a reason. Because you're my friend, and I like you." Ty Lee shrugs. "I dunno."

"Very deep." Mai comments flatly stirring the water of the pond with one hand.

"You'd both have to do it anyway." Azula says airily, sitting up. "Or I'd have the two of you killed."

Mai and Ty Lee exchange uncomfortable looks. 

"Come on." Azula bounces to her feet. "Zuzu got some sweets from Uncle yesterday, and I know where he hid them. He wasn't supposed to save any anyway."

She pauses. "And maybe on the way we can find some bugs."


	5. E is for Education

They take their lessons together. Zuko hates it. Azula, on the other hand, adores her schooling: she quickly outpaces her brother in almost every subject. And while she is best at Firebending (and therefore it must be her favourite, because it is easy and she is good at it), Azula always looks forward to her history lessons most.

Each day, they are drilled on famous battles in Fire Nation history- all victories, of course. Azula can picture them perfectly: her mind's eye lays out the battlefields like the maps in Father's study, ebbing red and green or blue as the tides of war dictate. She draws these diagrams meticulously, her strokes bold and black on the parchment where Zuko's waver and wobble. 

By the time she is ten, Azula has memorised nearly everything Lo and Li can teach from the approved curriculum. She shows off this skill to everyone, quoting losses, tactics and strategy to anyone who will listen.

Iroh is visiting. Since the death of Lu Ten he has become a broken man. Azula likes his visits: she finds them amusing. He listens to her recite the battle of Gar Sai from start to finish.

"Azula, do you know anything about the Earthbender generals that fought on that day?" Iroh pauses. "Beyond their names, and the fact that they lost."

"They were weak." Azula replies promptly, but frowns when he does not smile. 

"I suspected as much." Iroh gets to his feet. He has started to walk like an old man. "Thank, you Azula. Your memory is very good."

The next day, he presents her with a set of scrolls on the Earth Kingdom's history and culture. They collect dust in her wardrobe until, a few years later, Azula must pursue Iroh and Zuko.


	6. F is for Freedom

It is not Ozai's first choice to send Azula after the errant brother and wayward uncle. With one heir gone, it hardly seems wise to send out another into enemy territory. Azula works for days to convince him- luckily, with Zuko and Iroh gone, and Ursa never spoken about, father and daughter must make appearances together to assure the public that the Fire Nation royal family stays strong.

"I am not a traitor." she repeats again and again, standing for portraits, sitting in councils. "I have always been loyal to you."

Azula lays out her argument like a battle plan, placing her words like troops to serve her cause.

"Zuko had his chance, and he failed. A once-in-a-lifetime chance, and he let the Avatar slip through his fingers."

Ozai makes no indication he has heard: indeed, half the time he barely acknowledges his daughter. Azula is attuned to his mood, however, and knows that she is wearing him down.

"Iroh and Zuko need to be brought to heel. Leaving them alone will make your enemies think you are weak. And besides, what if they fell into Earth Kingdom hands?"

It is Azula's most determined campaign to date, and it pays off. When she walks away from the throne, the heat of the flames on her back and Ozai's commission scroll heavy in her hand, it is one of the sweetest victories she has ever known.


	7. G is for Girl

It does not escape Azula's notice that she is often the only woman present at the Firelord's council. Ostensibly, her nation values its women, but every Fire Sage is male. Every general she has ever met has been a man. Of course, every general she has met has been a fool too. 

Perhaps the two things are related.

Of the eighty-eight Fire Lords history records, only ten have been women. Azula counts them off on the fingers of her hands. Some were strong, or beautiful or wise. Only a very few were all three. Seven of them are commemorated in portraits in the great hall, alongside Azulon, Sozin and the others- brief interruptions in a long row of bearded faces. 

They are solemn, and grave, and Azula has the terrible urge to obliterate their faces every time she walks past them.

When the Sages unearth a statue of the first female Fire Lord, Azula looks at the blurred face intently, although she is not sure what she is trying to see.

"Would my lady like it for her chambers?" 

Azula frowns.

"No. I don't like it." She turns on her heel and walks away. "Take it to the Royal Collection or something. Better yet-" she pauses, looks at the statue. Empty eyes stare back. "Put it in the public gallery. We need the people to get used to the idea of a female Fire Lord once more."


	8. H is for Healing

(from the official biography of Fire Lord Zuko)

While it is tempting to record that the last history knows of Azula is that sobbing figure chained to the grate of the parade ground, records of the fate of Ozai's daughter tell quite a different story. 

Merciful in victory, the new Fire Lord ensured that his younger sister was well cared for in a suite of palace rooms specially adapted for her. When the new Royal family began to grow after his marriage to the Lady Mai, Zuko moved his sister to the old family home on Ember Island.

Princess Azula lived out the rest of her life in seclusion. It is not known wether her mind mended in time, or if the scars dealt during Sozin's Comet whereto deep to heal.

Zuko is getting far too familiar with prisons. The cage they held Iroh in stank- misery, disappointment and more earthy smells too, though he tried to hide his disgust, as a prince should. Ozai's cell is nicer, but still undeniably a prison.

Azula's is the best yet- a pleasant house surrounded by gardens. It is, however, no less miserable for that.

She does not talk to him. She has not talked to him for five years now.

"I saw Ty Lee today." Zuko settles at the table. Blank gold eyes look straight through him. "She's doing well, as always- you wouldn't believe some of the things she's got the Kyoshi warriors doing. I didn't think it was possible to backflip in that outfit."

Nothing. Zuko clears his throat awkwardly.

"The gardens are coming along nicely. I asked them not to put turtleducks in the pond." A memory of splashing, angry shouts. "I know you hate turtleducks."

Azula's silence is like a fortress, like armour- Zuko can feel himself scrabbling against it. In a way, it makes him angry. She's winning again.

"You know if there's anything you want to talk about, you can write."

His sister regards him coolly, then turns away.

Zuko gets to his feet, his old wound still lending him a slight stiffness as he moves. It is just like Azula, he reflects, to be spiteful for five years.

"I'll be along again next week."

Deep down, he knows it doesn't matter how often he visits. Azula will deny him the satisfaction of reconciliation until the day she dies.

In a way, it's a comfort. Some things never change.


	9. I is for Ignite

Even the best laid plans don't work out: even those who are born lucky must sometimes conceded to the quirks of circumstance. And sometimes there are border guards at the colonies who don't recognise the princess of the Fire Nation, even when she is standing right in front of them.

"I assure you, my credentials are there." Azula crosses her arms and stares up at the outpost's commander, memorising his face for the report she will send back to her father later. The man shrugs.

"You could be impostors. It's more likely than you think. I bet anybody could sneak into the Fire Nation if they were wearing the right gear."

"I am wearing the royal diadem." Surely the oaf is at the right height to see it.

"Oh, come on. Anyone could make that." The guard taps his scroll. "I can't believe that three teenaged girls riding giant lizards are some kind of- of hit squad for the Fire Lord, led by his daughter, no less." he laughs, high and nervous. "It's ludicrous."

Azula turns and looks at Ty Lee, who shrugs. Mai twitches her wrist the way she does when she's getting ready to throw a knife. Azula rolls her eyes.

"I don't have the time to argue with you, captain. So I'm just going to do this." She flicks a hand and the scroll combusts, followed by the captain's helmet. Azula ignores the man's screams, gets back onto her lizard and, almost as an afterthought, sends another fireball to the outpost.

"That's a bit extreme, Azula." Mai calls over the rushing wind. Azula pretends not to hear her. There's a time for subterfuge and careful planning and a time to set things on fire. The key, Azula has always felt, is in understanding the difference.


	10. J is for Justice

Technically, Azula won the agni kai. 

It's a fact that gnaws at her for the rest of her life. She shot at Zuko: the lightning would have finished him off it wasn't for that Water Tribe girl- Katara, Azula reminds herself, she must always remember the names of her enemies- and a bit of luck. 

If there was any justice in the world, she would have won.

But alas, Zuko's always been the lucky one. Azula's thought this for most of her life. It's Zuko who had mother's favour, that inexplicable way of bending her to his will that Azula could never really understand, and did not care to master. It was Zuko who was always stubbornly surviving, no matter what life threw at him. What else can you call it but luck, when Zuko is sent off on a hopeless quest and the Avatar practically drops into his lap? Azula has always considered it his most irritating trait.

The fact that he bungles every chance circumstance sends his way is but a small consolation, even if it makes him amusing to watch. 

It also makes him difficult to plan against. It made their agni kai far closer than it should have been. And it made her brother the Fire Lord, when by every right of law and blood it should be her on that throne even now.

No, there's no justice in this world, Azula reflects, as she sits and bides her time and seethes. No justice whatsoever.


	11. K is for Knife

The number of knives Mai carries varies from day to day, depending on how much fighting she expects to do. Azula can tell how safe Mai feels from the way she holds herself, the way she sits- restricted by the metal encircling her body or free to slump in a chair and glower. Sometimes she makes a game of it- whispering the number to Mai as she walks past, feeling a rush of triumph as other girl nods. 

Azula likes Mai best when she's wearing the full compliment of knives. The belts encircling her wrists and ankles, the blades tucked into her sash and hair, held in scabbards sewn into her robes at her back and waist. Azula's fingers itch to find them, to search out every one and stack them up to prove her cleverness.

On a purely practical level, it pleases her because it means Mai's prepared. Azula knows the importance of well-equipped foot soldiers. It is the first lesson every general learns. Besides, the life they're leading now demands careful attention at all times- the same kind of focus one needs, she assumes, when wearing several sharp blades close to one's body. 

On another level, Azula appreciates that brittle edge the knives give her, that careful movement, the aura of concealed threat. When she wears the knives, Mai is deadly and dangerous and entirely hers. When Azula sees her without any of them on Ember Island Mai seems diminished, her hard edge dulled.

(Another reason to despise her brother. He's made Mai so very boring, and appreciates nothing of what she could be, if only she was properly directed)

On the day of the eclipse, Azula tucks some knives of her own into her armour and allows herself a smile at her reflection.


	12. L is for Lightning

The breathing comes first: in and out, level, calm. Then the movement of the arms. A perfect circle, touching one chi point, then the other, an unbroken ring of power.

The movement speeds up, the air crackles with barely restrained energy, and Azula releases the lightning along her arm and out through her fingers.

Perfect.

From their seats by the throne, Lo and Li applaud. It's a dry, flat sound.

"Well done, Princess." As if their praise means anything to her. "It has been a long time since we have seen one so young master lightning."

Azula acknowledges their words with a slight tilt of her head.

Her fire has always burned hotter than most (bright blue, where Father, Zuko and Iroh's flames are gold), and lighting comes to her more readily than anyone except the princess herself expected. For Azula, the question was not if she could summon lightning but when. 

As she walks back to her cabin, Azula closes her eyes and sees the after-image flash in the darkness- a spidery web of light that smells of ozone and crackles with danger.

That night, Azula arcs her fingers to make sparks dance between them, and watches them flare and burn.


	13. M is for Map

There's a gigantic map of the Earth Kingdom in one of the side rooms of the Imperial Palace at Ba Sing Se. Far more accurate than any the Fire Nation scouts have compiled, it's rendered in marble and jade and gold, tiny doll-houses marking the cities, thin threads of green denoting roads. Too big for a table, it's set into the floor, where until recently Long Feng had plotted out his battle plans.

Azula strides across the map like a colossus, her feet making journeys in a single step that took her days in reality. 

"You're not supposed to-" Joo Dee's voice dies away as Azula looks at her. her eyes dart nervously, and she giggles. "I mean, I am honoured that you appreciate the fine Earth Kingdom craftsmanship. We can offer many such things in trade to the Fire Nation."

Joo Dee is skilled at hiding her true feelings, but Azula can sense the fear in her voice. 

"I will report as such back to my father." Azula crouches down to look more closely at the plains where she had so recently chased Zuko and the Avatar. A delicate model village crunches under her heel- she pays it no heed, though Joo Dee winces.

Someone has scattered flags across it to show where the Earth king's armies lie, and red silk banners represent the Fire Nation. 

Carefully, Azula picks up one tiny red flag and perches it on the top of the golden Imperial Palace that surmounts the little mound of doll-buildings denoting Ba Sing Se.


	14. N is for Nature

"So this is camping."

Azula looks around. The metal landcrawler has stopped for the night and the servants have set up an awning, turning the vehicle into a tent for the night. Azula reclines in a chair set out for her- guards are scattered around the clearing picking up wood for a fire. Later, there will be whatever the soldiers can catch in the forest, mixed with the rations Azula commandeered all the way back in the Fire Nation. It's all rather idyllic.

"Eeh, not really." Ty Lee has actually been camping, of course. If one can call living with the circus a camping trip. She's doing nervous handstands a few feet away, jumping from one hand to the other. "Usually when you're camping there's less, uh, gold."

"More songs." Mai contributes from her own seat. Where she picked up that tidbit spirits only knew. 

"Should we sing?" Azula looks at Mai, who scowls.

"You can. I'm not."

Somewhere, a bird starts to sing. Azula glares at it, but it doesn't shut up. A breeze ruffles the trees, and things get uncomfortably cool. There's a damp smell in the air, heralding rain to come.

Azula doesn't shiver, but she sits a little straighter in her chair.

"The sooner we find my brother, the better." she grumbles. "If this is how he's living, death will be a mercy."


	15. O is for Ozai

The throne is hard and cold, and Azula's knees are going numb. She kneels on it anyway. her mind conjures the flames her bending cannot provide- not yet. 

"What are you doing?"

She looks up to see Zuko silhouetted in the entrance. Her nose wrinkles as he advances.

"That's Father's throne."

"It will be mine one day." Azula uncrosses one stiff leg out from under the other. "I am merely practicing."

"It won't be yours." Zuko clenches his fists, and there's a slight smell of burning. Azula tuts slightly at the loss on control- the burnt smell increases. "I'll be Fire Lord after Father... after he's gone."

"When he dies, you mean?" Azula chuckles. "Uncle Iroh was the older son when Azulon died. Father found a way around that. I don't think he'll be too eager to pass the throne along to you."

Zuko hesitates. "I'll tell him. I'll tell Father, and you'll be in trouble."

"Go ahead." Azula swings around the leftmost pillar, feeling the curve of the dragon that twines its way up to the ceiling. "You're very confident that he'll listen. When was the last time Father spoke to you, anyway?"

The last time Ozai spoke to Azula was a few days ago. She'd managed to produce her first spark of lightning. Zuko colours, an ugly shade of pink that will later in life clash horribly with his scar.

"Shut up. You're a liar."

"I'm a Fire Lord." Azula corrects him, calmly. "I'm Ozai's heir, and Fire Lords don't lie."


	16. P is for Princess

Ursa takes care to make the schoolroom bright. Zuko goes through a firefly phase- for months he's fascinated by the creatures- and the Palace gardeners help him catch some, to keep in a jar in the schoolroom.

Azula shows no interest in them at all until one day when, passing the empty room, she goes in and covers the airholes with her hands so that she can watch the lights flicker and die.

Before the last insects are fully dead, Azula's hands are snatched away.

"Azula!" Ursa's voice is sharp with anger: with fear. "What are you doing?!"

"I wanted to watch them." Azula wriggles her hands out of her mother's grip. 

"There were nearly dead." Ursa picks up the jar and opens it, setting the remaining insects free. "Azula, they need air to live."

"I know." Azula replies, watching the insects fly away. "Why do you think I took it away?"

Ursa looks at her, her eyes sad and worried and afraid.

"That's not how a princess behaves."

Azula gets up and walks away. "I think a princess behaves how she wants, doesn't she?"

And, as usual, Ursa cannot answer her daughter.


	17. Q is for Quarantine

It is some time before the Avatar shows up, but they keep her in chains, held to the grate of the parade ground. Azula barely notices Aang's arrival. She has sunken in on herself, her rage spent.

No-one has come near her for hours.

"I'm sorry."

The Avatar's voice is quiet, sorrowful. Azula gives him a tired sneer. What right does he have to apologise to her?

Aang crouches next to her.

"They want me to take your bending away."

Azula cannot summon the energy to struggle any more, but grunts and shakes her head, her hair clinging in wet strands to her face. Aang doesn't flinch: she remembers that for the rest of her life. Standing next to a supercharged, crazy firebender, and he doesn't flinch for a second.

"I'm not going to." He looks over at where Azula's fire has carved a massive scar in the walkway behind her. "Your brother doesn't want me to." 

Azula doesn't hear him, not really. She has no brother. No mother, no father, no uncle, no friends. She's alone, and she was a fool to assume otherwise.

"I want you to remember that. You'll be alone for a while, but Zuko doesn't give up on people easily."

Azula snorts, a tiny spark of fire blooming from her breath. Aang may not be afraid, but Azula has surrounded herself in fear: and that fear will quarantine her for the rest of her life.


	18. R is for Roku

Among the few possessions Azula takes from the royal palace are a set of books, bound in red leather and embossed with golden characters that proudly proclaim their titles.

Ten precepts of military strategy. A history of the Earth Kingdom conquest. Great Battles of the Early War (a perennial favourite). And, right at the bottom, The Genealogy of the Royal Family.

Azula does not have an uncle to send her secret messages, or lay things out in stories, to guide her along the preferred path. As always, Azula works things out for herself from information she seeks out. 

Ozai would not talk about Ursa. So, curious as to why such a man would marry a woman like her mother, Azula went digging. What she finds surprises her only a little. With no affinity for bending and little political power, it would take an Avatar in the bloodline to attract Ozai's attention. What does surprise her is that Roku's power is not celebrated, the connection exploited to build the cult her father is carefully constructing around himself. What the man was in life is gone. What he is in death can be shaped like any other weapon.

She composes a letter in bold black writing- Dear Father, I have uncovered a secret from our family past- but she never sends it in the end. Ozai has his reasons to keep her from Roku, she is sure.

And by the time she is not, it no longer matters.


	19. S is for Summer

For one summer, Azula is visited in her prison by a young woman with eyes like fire and black hair that bounces busily around her shoulders. She is tall, and vital, and full of the energy that Azula herself has lost.

Naturally, Azula hates her.

"Have you come to gloat?"

Her voice is thick with disuse, but still carries the dull remnant of its old edge. The girl shakes her head.

"I just-" she pauses, scans the room as if the words are hiding somewhere in the rafters. "I just felt I should see you."

"Well, here I am." Azula spreads her arms. "The crazy sister of the Fire Lord."

She leans forward, lowers her voice to a savage, hissing whisper. "Tell your father that I have not grown sentimental in my old age. If he wants to speak to me, he should not use his daughter."

The girl leans back a little, but her eyes harden. Azula notes it with surprise and a small degree of pride.

"Father has nothing to do with this." she folds her arms. "I thought I should pay my proper respects to my old aunt. And the previous female Fire Lord."

Azula smiles, slow and cunning. "Then it is an honour, princess."

It is, apart from that one golden summer so very long ago, the best summer of Azula's life.


	20. T is for Ty Lee

Azula does not remember meeting Ty Lee for the frost time. She has simply always been there, as constant as the sun in the sky or the sound of her own breath. As long as there is Azula, there is Ty Lee. 

That is why it stings all the more when she hears about Ty Lee's escape from her family through the gossip networks of the palace. Not that Azula doesn't approve- Ty Lee's family is, in her opinion, unbearably dull- but rather that if Ty Lee was going to run away she should have told Azula about it.

They talk about it, in private, that first night on the chase.

"You should have told me where you were going."

Ty Lee's back tenses, her idle chatter- something about a boy, Azula wasn't really listening- dies.

"Did I not?" Her voice is bright and brittle. "I'm sorry, Azula."

(Ty Lee is always apologising for one thing or another)

Azula flicks a strand of hair out of her face and picks up Ty Lee's circus headdress. It makes her face look like a flower. It's stupid. Azula watches it burn in her hand.

"I forgive you."

The headdress blackens, crumples. Cheap. Like everything in this place.

"Don't run away from me again, though." Ty Lee still hasn't turned to look at her. "Finding you again is such an inconvenience."


	21. U is for Ursa

Ursa had always wanted a daughter. Someone to give the antique hairpins and headdresses that had belonged to Ta Min to. Someone for whom she could build a life at court, picking her noble friends- and servants who might become friends, in time. Someone that she could share the women's writing with, the language of sharp strokes and half-spoken sounds that would be their secret language, special and solitary.

A place away from Ozai, whom she has never loved.

As Ursa's belly swells she speaks to it as often as she can, the way she did with Zuko: telling the baby of the world that waits for it. Not Ozai's strange, sullen silences or mechanical, dutiful acts of ritual devotion (only performed in public) but the flowering of the lightningblossom trees in the garden, the hatching of the baby turtleducks, the dancing of the children during the Fire Festival. 

When she slept, though, she dreamed of dragons, their fiery eyes glaring across the sky, and Ursa was afraid.

Her labour with Azula is long and hard, a public spectacle (as so much of her life is) surrounded by the chanting of the Fire Sages and the worrying attention of her handmaids. Zuko watches silently, his hands forming fists by his sides. Ozai barely notices. 

But when the court doctor places the baby beside her and declares it a girl, ours sinks her head back onto the pillow and smiles. Ursa does not notice that the baby, though healthy, is strangely silent.

She will always love Zuko. But she has wanted a daughter all her life.


	22. V is for Void

Azula opens her eyes.

One might expect that Azula has trouble sleeping, but the simple truth of the matter is that Azula enjoys the untroubled sleep of one who is completely at peace with who and what she is. Tossing and turning all night is for those who have remorse, doubt or fear, and Azula has mastered these for weapons.

Still. She opens her eyes.

It is past the second hour of the morning. The darkness, she notes, is absolute. As is her wakefulness.

Outside her door, something moves.

Azula sits and and swings her legs over the edge of the bed. Her movements are careful, precise and silent. The red silk of her robe looks black in the dark as she pads over to the door and listens.

Another sound. Movement, dulled but definite. There is a stranger in the palace.

Gently, she eases the door open and peers around it, eyes narrowing as if doing so will help her see. There are few guards this deep in the palace. Any intruder who has gotten this far will have to chance his luck with her or her father. So far, none have been brave enough.

The hall is empty. Azula moves along it, following the faint sound from the dusty blackness of her chambers into the much greater, cavernous dark of the royal halls. The dim light reflected on the polished walls only serves to highlight the void around her. The sound grows more indistinct: the whisper of hair blowing as someone runs, the rustle of a robe (a sound she finds dimly familiar). 

Azula realises she is in the throne room.

She also realises that the noises have stopped. And that every polished surface is reflecting a familiar face, a throng of ghosts pushing forward out of the stone and brass and bronze.

Azula does not flee. But she strides out of the throne room at a much faster pace than she is accustomed to.


	23. W is for Wreckage

The beach house attic has more than baby pictures. As she sorts through the boxes and barrels stacked under the roof, Katara finds a whole box of toy soldiers painted in red and gold. At first, she assumes they're Zuko's and starts to bring it downstairs to show him until she comes across a small upstairs room with more soldiers laid out in ranks, as if in a parade.

She starts to smile until she sees a large heap of charred wood at the centre. Stirring it with a finger, it crumbles into dust, the ash flying up and making her sneeze.

One piece of wood, still intact, has an eye painted on it.

Katara (who still has dolls waiting for her back at the South Pole, carved whalebone smiles frozen and fixed at the time she left) drops it. As it falls, it disturbs the ash some more and reveals what could be a tiny bone.

"Katara?"

Zuko pokes his head around the door. 

"I'm looking for Aang. Have you seen him?"

"No." Katara dusts her hands off guiltily. "I was just looking at your old room."

"This wasn't my room." Zuko withdraws back into the hall, his voice fading as he walks away. "It was Azula's."


	24. X is for Exhibition

They sit in the stands in the arena. Iroh, she is sure, has ended up next to her by accident. Her uncle would never willingly spend time with her, nor she with him.

It doesn't matter. She doesn't have to look at him. She just needs to keep her eyes on the stage. 

"This is wrong." Iroh mutters, as Zuko begs for his life. He pleads, cries, and, eventually, screams.

The air fills with the smell of burnt flesh.

Azula doesn't answer him. She doesn't hide her smile, either, or the fist that clenches in triumph, nails digging into her hand.

Next to her, Iroh retches and hurries off to see to her brother. Azula tuts internally.

Iroh is a fool, a sentimental old man who cannot understand what has happened here today. 

(The rumour is that he tried to take his own life after Lu Ten's death. Certainly something broke him, although Azula regrets that it could not finish the job).

Azula keeps her eyes fixed on Ozai, powerful and strong in the golden light of the arena, and feels the victory that has been given to her today. There's no way after this little exhibition that Zuko will ever become Fire Lord.

Her ascension is only a matter of time.


	25. Y is for Yellow

Azula's eyes are yellow, like her father's. Zuko and Ursa ran to gold in their colouring, but Azula likes to think that she is more like her father in her features than anyone else. She has eyes, the line of his nose and jaw. Released from its topknot, her hair falls like his, straight and dark and long.

Certainly nothing remains of her mother. Azula does her best to make sure of that. 

She makes a habit of studying Ozai sometimes as they complete those royal duties that require the presence of the whole family, or the part of it that remains. She copies the tilt of his head as he studies the maps in the war room, clasping her hands behind her back when she stands to address her people, or noting the slouch that betrays the fact that Ozai was not trained to the throne he occupies. Only her bending style is completely her own, elegant and precise, and that is because she has seen her father bend exactly once, sending double streaks of lighting into the sky and smirking at her amazement.

The smile, too, is his: she can feel the hard line it forms on her face. Triumphant, controlling, and devoid of warmth.

One day, she will bend lightning with both hands and stand like him on the balcony of the royal palace to address her subjects. One day, she will shift her shoulders under the weight of a heavy royal robe, as Ozai does when he believes no-one is watching.

Azula is truly her father's daughter. She works too hard to be otherwise.


	26. Z is for Zuko

It had to be Zuko.

Like the cycle of the seasons, history, it seems, repeats itself- in wars that span continents, and battles that last for years. In patterns that echo down through time (words that echo over and over: agni kai, war, comet, fire and blood), and spirits that wear changing faces.

They kneel, backs to each other, the sound of their breathing echoing in the empty parade ground.

Sozin's granddaughter and Roku's grandson.

Ozai's prodigy and Iroh's favourite nephew.

Two elements, eternally at war. It had to be Zuko. Only now, Azula realises, as she rises to her feet, the rushing of blood loud in her ears, is her betrayal complete.

But she still stands, and sheds her cloak to fight, because nobody else decides her destiny but her.

"I'm sorry it has to end this way, brother."

Is that her voice? It sounds so harsh, and so lonely, and so very far away.

"No." Zuko readies himself to fight. And Azula grins, wide and wicked, because he finally, finally understands. "You're not."


End file.
